Thursday, 10 May 2018

Brooklyn safety official charged with raping 16-year-old girl

Daskal was charged with rape and criminal sex act, plus three misdemeanors — forcible touching, sex abuse and acting in a manner injurious to a child. (Linda Rosier/New York Daily News)

An official with an influential neighborhood watch group in Brooklyn has been charged with raping a 16-year-old girl, police said Thursday.

Jacob Daskal, 59, who runs the Shomrim's Brooklyn South Safety Patrol, a Hasidic neighborhood watch group, abused the girl between August and November of last year, police said.

Daskal was charged with rape and criminal sex act, plus three misdemeanors — forcible touching, sex abuse and acting in a manner injurious to a child.

Shomrim's links to law enforcement have been a subplot in the ongoing federal probe involving two businessmen and a number of NYPD supervisors. In 2016, the FBI investigated what role the supervisors may have played in securing gun licenses for members of Shomrim.

Daskal, who lives in Borough Park and has strong ties to the NYPD, was not charged in the case.